JK Rowling, Margaret Atwood shame cancel culture in new letter

A controversial letter signed by JK Rowling among others bemoaning cancel culture, has ignited widespread debate on social media.

JK Rowling, Margaret Atwood and Gloria Steinem have joined forces to bemoan the death of free speech in a controversial open letter, igniting swift backlash on social media.

Rowling – accused in recent months of transphobia for likening hormone treatment to gay conversion therapy and saying only women menstruate – said she was “proud” to sign the letter, titled “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate”, along with 149 other leading authors, academics and journalists.

Published by Harper’s Magazine, the high-profile figures welcomed protests for racial and social justice and calls for greater equality across society.

But, they warned this “needed reckoning” has amplified “a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favour of ideological conformity”.

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I was very proud to sign this letter in defence of a foundational principle of a liberal society: open debate and freedom of thought and speech.https://t.co/noh8VRHMyN

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 7, 2020

Hitting out at how a “panicked damage control” is leading to the delivery of “hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms”, the letter cautioned cancel culture was leading to the “free exchange of information and ideas” becoming “more constricted” each day.

“While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues.”

This “stifling atmosphere” seeks to “harm the most vital causes of our time”, they wrote.

“The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, inevitably hurts those who lack power and make everyone else less capable of democratic participation.”

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The Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood was among the letter’s 150 signatories. Picture: Angela Weiss/AFP

Feminist Gloria Steinem, pictured in 2016, also signed the letter. Picture: Alberto E Rodriguez/Getty Images

On social media the reaction was swift: while some praised the letter’s overall message, others, including those who’d signed it, criticised their argument, deeming it “fatuous, self-important drivel”.

A spokesman for Mermaids, a charity that supports trans children and their families, accused Rowling in particular of using her platform to target trans rights while trying to deflect criticism.

“We consider it disingenuous for a world-famous author with millions of followers to imply she is being silenced by a group of people who are consistently ignored, misrepresented, ridiculed and humiliated,” he told Reuters.

Historian Kerri Greenidge, one of the original signatories to the letter, said she did not endorse it and was asking for a retraction.

Another signatory, transgender author and professor Jennifer Finney Boylan, also indicated that she regretted taking part.

“I did not know who else had signed that letter. I thought I was endorsing a well meaning, if vague, message against internet shaming,” she wrote.

“The consequences are mine to bear. I am so sorry.”

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This letter is a broadside against many disadvantaged communities, but it is _particularly_ a broadside against trans people, and I’m disappointed to see people I know and respect (including Known Trans Woman Jennifer Finney Boylan) among its list of signatories. https://t.co/wlWG94neh4

— Emily VanDerWerff 😎 (@emilyvdw) July 7, 2020

Emily VanDerWerff, a critic at large at Vox who is transgender, posted on Twitter a letter she had sent to her editors, criticising the fact Vox writer Matthew Yglesias, along with “several prominent anti-trans voices” had signed the letter.

“The letter, signed as it is by several prominent anti-trans voices and containing as many dog whistles toward anti-trans positions as it does, ideally would not have been signed by anybody at Vox, much less one of the most prominent people at our publication,” she wrote.

“I don’t want Matt to be reprimanded or fired or even asked to submit an apology. Doing any of the above would only solidify, in his own mind, the idea that he is being martyred for his beliefs.”